The Looking Glass
by EdwardsLily
Summary: 12 years after DH Pre-epilogue , Harry has a chance to go back and relive some of the past. How does he handle it?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

There was a timid knock at the door and Harry knew instantly who it would be. He took off his glasses and rubbed his sore eyes, sighing, but pleased to have an excuse to escape the paperwork. "Come in, Draco," he said.

The door opened just as timidly, and a tall, pale blond man stepped inside, clutching a sheaf of parchment to his chest. Twelve years had changed Draco Malfoy; he was barely recognizable. While most would have remembered him as haughty, arrogant, and self-assured, he had become meek, bumbling, and humble. Some owed it to the fact that his legendary father, Lucius, had been in Azkaban for the past ten years, but Harry knew differently. The Malfoy family hadn't been especially close to the Death Eaters in the last year of the fight. They still no longer knew exactly where they fit. Although Draco and his mother were under Ministry protection, they still lived in fear of the remaining Death Eaters, and in an embarrassed sort of gratitude to the Order of the Phoenix. Malfoys were proud. They didn't ask a bunch of Gryffindors to save their sorry arses. Unfortunately for them, times had changed.

"Mr. Weasley down in the Department of Mysteries wanted me to bring this to you, Mr. Minister," Draco said, holding the parchment out to Harry without really meeting his eyes.

Harry took the papers with a warm smile, trying to hide the acid that rose in the back of his throat. He might have hated Draco back at school, but he felt sorry for him now. Nobody deserved to live like this. He wished that Draco would treat him like a human being, instead of some unworthy hero. "Thank you, Draco."

The blonde smiled stiffly and hurried out of the office. Harry put his glasses back onto his stinging eyes and looked at the new pile of paperwork. He was surprised to be getting something from Ron, who knew that Harry was swamped and was always more than willing to find a way out of writing a report.

He glanced at the top of the page, and was surprised to see that it wasn't indeed a formal report. It was a letter.

_Harry_, read Ron's scribbling handwriting.

_Listen, mate, I know you're busy, but I think this is worth it. Harold Dingle in Time and Paradoxes wanted me to forward this memo to you. It's not technically regulation yet but I thought you might be interested in trying it out. Dingle's staff tested it – it's very safe. Just needs your approval._

Intrigued, Harry flipped the top page and his jaw dropped when he looked at the title of the next page. He shoved his chair away from his desk and jogged out into the hall, racing as fast as he could to the Department of Mysteries.

* * *

**It's my first ever HP fic. I know the writing is crap right now, but I promise it'll get better once I get used to it. Also, I'm chatting up a beta right now who will hopefully help me. Please let me know if this is intriguing enough to continue.**


	2. The Looking Glass

**Thank you for your already positive feedback. I'm looking forward to hearing from a lot of brand new reviewers in the HARRY POTTER fandom. I'm starting to get really excited, even though I have no idea where this plot is going.  


* * *

Chapter One**

**The Looking Glass**

People made way for Harry as he stumbled onto the elevator. Few people looked concerned at the Minister of Magic's apparent distress; it was a fairly common sight to see Harry Potter running haphazardly through the halls of the Ministry. He wasn't much one for form and dignity, unlike his predecessors. A few of the older, more conservative members of the Ministry frowned upon Mr. Potter's approach, but most people found the fresh attitude toward governing the magical world refreshing.

Harry didn't make small talk with the people with him on the elevator, though he got a few curious glances. His mind was racing as fast as his heart as it skimmed through the possibilities suggested by the parchments he held. It was exactly what he needed to get him moving - as of then, it had been a long, tedious day. But now... he could barely think of his regular work. His heart in his throat, he bolted from the almost empty elevator as soon as it dinged and the cool woman's voice said, "Department of Mysteries."

A tall, red-haired, freckled man stood halfway down the hall, talking in a low, hurried voice with a black-robed woman with bushy brown hair. They both turned when they heard his footsteps.

"Harry!" Ron Weasley cried, turning away from Hermione. "Knew you'd come, mate."

"Ron," said Hermione sternly. "You can't expect Harry to go along with this, can you? This is clearly unregulated -"

"No," Harry said, slowing to a walk and catching his breath. A long, slow smile spread across his face. "This is bloody brilliant."

Hermione flipped her hair. "Harry, you're not honestly thinking about doing this, are you? You're the Minister of Magic. You're not in school anymore. You can't go gallivanting off on foolish, whimsical missions and expecting that someone responsible will go after you. You're supposed to be the responsible one."

"Come off it," Ron said huffily. "Dingle told me he's done it. Harry can do it too if he wants, can't you Harry? It's perfectly safe. Dingle didn't come out the worse for it."

Hermione crossed her arms angrily. "Yes, well, look at Dingle wouldn't you? He's not exactly the brightest bulb to begin with."

Harry chuckled. "I seem to remember this speech quite well, Hermione."

Ron grinned. "Wasn't there something once about a dog?" he said.

Harry screwed up his face like he was trying to concentrate. "I think it had, what, two heads?"

Hermione sniffed. "Three."

"That's right." Ron looked at her radiantly, like she'd solved one of life's greatest mysteries. "Three heads. And it was somewhere we weren't supposed to be, wasn't it? Blimey, Harry. Can't imagine why we were there."

"Because you were being brave arses and trying to duel Malfoy," Hermione said.

"Almost got caught by that dog, didn't we Ron?" Harry said thoughtfully. "But it was Hermione who let us know that, didn't she?"

Ron adopted a high-pitched voice that sounded frighteningly like that of his wife. "'We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled.' Right good thing that dog was actually on our side, eh Hermione?"

"This is very different, Ronald. Hagrid isn't here to tell Harry that if he plays a tune everything will go right again. Haven't I told you this a million times: Don't mess with time travel? Remember when I had the Time Turner? I had to be so careful not to be seen..."

"Bloody good thing that you had that Time Turner though, Hermione," Ron said seriously. "Otherwise we might not have had Sirius with us half the time, and no one would have known that Pettigrew was a right git and Buckbeak..."

"Hermione's right," Harry said quietly. They both looked at him in surprise. "This is very different. This is different because it's an unproven magic that may well be very dangerous. We have no idea what the implications of it are, and..."

"You sound an awful lot like Fudge, mate," Ron said. "Or my Mum."

"And Harry would do well to live by a certain set of rules," Hermione said. "We're all grown up now. We have to be responsible."

"AND!" Harry said over them, "While I will admit that sometimes things didn't go exactly the way I wanted them to go, I've learned in my life that sometimes you have to take risks to get the things that our really worthwhile. Remember the Marauder's Map, Hermione? The DA? Remember looking around for Horcruxes? We don't always have to know what we're doing. Sometimes, the unknown is the best."

Ron clapped him on the back, but Hermione still looked annoyed.

"Remember Sectumsempra, Harry? And the rest of that stupid Potions book? Remember the Department of Mysteries and your failed Occlumancy? You can't do everything perfectly by yourself."

"I know," Harry said. "That's why I'm not going alone."

Ron paled under his freckles – he looked both nervous and excited. It was an expression both Harry and Hermione knew very well. "Blimey, Harry, you don't mean…"

"That I'm taking you with me?" Harry said softly. "Yeah. You know I wouldn't have it any other way, mate." He turned to Hermione. "You too. I don't know if I could manage without you. Best witch in my year."

She flushed faintly pink, but sighed. "Oh, all right Harry. I'll come, if that's what would make you happy."

Harry smiled. He'd never thought that it would be like this – that he would be the one convincing them to come with him, and not the other way around. "That would make me very happy, Hermione. It just wouldn't be right without you two."

A door halfway down the hall opened to keep them from lapsing into an embarrassed silence, and a portly man stuck his head out. "Mr. Minister!" he cried, hurrying out to come shake Harry's hand. "What brings you down to the Department of Mysteries today?"

For an odd moment, Harry had an image of Hagrid puffing out his chest proudly and saying, "Official Hogwarts Business," and permitted himself a grin. But he was not Hagrid. He could not merely claim that it was an Official Ministry Affair. He was Harry fucking Potter – the boy who lived, not the boy who lied.

"Ron here tells me you've stumbled across something quite extraordinary, Dingle," Harry said easily. "Do you mind if I look around?"

Dingle grinned. "Of course not, Minister. Please come in."

Harry had to duck his head to fit through the small doorway. When he walked into the room, his throat swelled with the memories that flooded him already. The dark, high-ceilinged, circular room reminded him of a time not so long ago, it seemed, when he was naïve and Sirius was alive and life was almost normal. He could almost smell, as he had the last time he was here, the smell of burning hair and explosions. He could almost hear the cackling of Bellatrix Lestrange, dead these past ten years.

Hermione pressed closer to him, and Ron cleared his throat gruffly.

Dingle, oblivious to the emotion, bounced forward and opened one of the dozen or so unmarked doors. "After you three," he said, bowing them in.

They filed in, and Harry heard Hermione take a quick breath. "Ooh," she hissed. "This room is new."

It was new. Or, at least, Harry hadn't seen it. Maybe, he thought ironically, this was the fabled Unmarked Door. Dumbledore said that it had held the greatest of all magical powers – love. But now that love had defeated Voldy, what was left for this room to hold?

The room was surprisingly bland, for a Ministry office. The walls were cheap, whitewashed and bare. The big, wooden desk had been shoved into the far corner, and over its top was a layer of debris – old papers, crumpled napkins, coffee mugs, and a few open books. In the centre of the room was another table, smaller this time, with four chairs arranged around it. A huge looking glass stood propped in the middle of the table. Its face did not reflect the dingy room; it was completely blank.

"Nice décor you have in here," Ron said loudly. His voice echoed between the empty walls.

Dingle smirked and went to sit in the threadbare swivel chair behind the desk. "It has to be bare, Mr. Weasley. This room _becomes_ the past. Not much space for extra furniture, is there?"

Hermione had pulled out her wand, and was walking around carefully. "What kind of paint is this, Mr. Dingle?" she asked abruptly.

"Goblin made," he said promptly. "Mixed with fine silver to reduce the vibrations of the time continuum."

Hermione nodded and kept walking. Harry looked at Ron, and they both rolled their eyes very slightly.

"So, how exactly does this work?" Harry squinted around the room for some clue – a potion, maybe, or a gateway of some sort. He couldn't image how time travel would work in a dingy little office space.

"The mirror," Hermione said, as if it would be obvious. She had that look on her face – the "Oh! I've figured out something magical!" look that only Hermione could ever pull off. She beamed at them all. "It's brilliant."

"She's off her rocker," Ron murmured to Harry.

But Dingle was smiling too. "Exactly. Why don't you take a look, Mr. Potter?"

Harry shrugged and moved over to the table. He glanced in the mirror – expecting to see himself: thirty years old, sleepy, red-eyed from paperwork, and generally rumpled from his activities – and gasped. He did _not_ see himself. His face was rounder, more youthful. The skin was clearer. His hair, though messy, had more volume. His eyes were still bright and shining. He couldn't have been any older than seventeen. And yet here he was, grinning up at himself…

"What the hell is this?"

"What is it showing you?" Dingle asked.

"It's… me," Harry marveled. He reached out to touch the mirror, and was surprised when his reflection did not copy the gesture. "Me… but younger."

"It's a reflection of the past," Hermione breathed.

"I want to see." Ron pushed forward and nudged Harry not so gently out of the way. "Blimey, Harry. I've gotten old. Look at this. Look how young I used to be… Bloody hell. Hermione, why did you ever let me dress myself? God, this is one of those sweaters from Mum…"

Harry glanced at the mirror and felt his stomach twist as a wave of déjà-vu hit him hard. He didn't see Ron in the mirror; he saw himself. He glanced at Hermione, and mouthed, "Mirror of Erised?"

She shrugged. "How does it control its time flow, Mr. Dingle?"

"It generally shows involuntary images," he said, "all of which concern the viewer. However, it can be focused onto a certain time and place, as desired."

"How is it different from a Pensive?"

Hermione answered him. "You have to have actually been there to go back into a Pensive, or know someone who was there. With this, you can go anywhere you want to. It has limitless power."

"But you can't change time?" Ron frowned.

"You can't interact with people at all," Dingle said. "It's only a reflection, not an actual trip through time. It's not a Time Turner."

Harry ran his finger across the table, and was surprised to find it dusty. "How long have you been developing this?" He frowned. He'd never signed any approvals for this kind of magic. Surely, the Department of Mysteries wasn't that secretive…

"Since the Shacklebolt administration. He approved it ten years ago, and we've been working on it ever since. Would you like to have a go, Minister?"

"A… go?"

Hermione pulled out a chair and smiled at him. "It should be perfectly safe, Harry. Would you like to take a peak back into the past?"

He sat, feeling a little numb. "I'm still not sure how this is all possible."

Ron gave him a look. "Don't even think about it, mate. Just enjoy it."

Harry permitted himself a grin as Hermione sat down. "So what? Do we just all look at the mirror? And it magics us away? How does it bring us all to the same time?"

Dingle went over to sit at his desk. "That's exactly it. It will search for a random time where all three of you were present. Give it just a moment, and you'll be wherever it means to take you."

Feeling a bit awkward, Harry looked into the mirror, back at his seventeen-year-old self. He saw Ron shift surreptitiously in his chair, and felt Hermione beside him, practically vibrating with nervous energy. He smiled a bit, and then the room shifted in the most peculiar, nausea-inducing way. The chair jerked out from under him; the table under his hands disappeared. A voice swore loudly, and his vision blurred.

He blinked.

He was in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.

* * *

**So there it is. I hope you enjoyed it. I wrote it when I was supposed to be asleep - I just moved to France and I'm not used to the time differences so it's about 6 am here and I have to be somewhere tomorrow - oops! Anyone with feedback is more than welcome to leave it. Also, I am taking suggestions for future HP plots so please feel free to PM me at any time.**

**P.S. My updates are generally NEVER this fast. Just ask my Twilight readers. :)  
**


End file.
